3DU Contest Rules? What for?

The tone of this thread may seem unpleasant, but I'd rather have this sort of thing out in the open than having it turn into a disaster behind the scenes. If there's a legitimate problem, we can find a way to resolve it. If there isn't, one would hope we could reach an understanding with Casemon. Being a newcomer in itself doesn't make his complaint any less legitimate.

I've been on both sides of the updating post-deadline issue. Last year for OMG our game Chaos Machine was horribly incomplete, and we were forced to continue submitting updated versions that were playable and basically acceptable to us. The problems we encountered (as it was a public voting contest) were notifying everyone of the updates before they voted. Last year it was also clearly defined in the rules that builds could be updated after the deadline. This is because there was an upload deadline and a voting begins date which were separate.

This year, I didn't see explicit instructions that entries could be updated after the deadline, so I made damn sure that the final upload was as finished as it would be.

To be honest, I think Parallel Destiny could really benefit from an additional update or two, but I have no plans to do any. Perhaps this year was more of an exercise for me about meeting deadlines and planning than it was about winning the contest. When it comes to judging, it'd be nice (for my team) if entries that were updated post deadline were marked down a point or two for consideration of breaking the deadline. Of course, that was not called out in the rules either so I don't expect such an action.

Regarding the other topic of debate, I think the rule is intended to prevent people who have been sharing & selling existing versions of their game from entering that version into the contest. I would consider migration to a different engine and rewriting of code/recreation of art to be a unique entry, even if it is an implementation of an old idea.

I'm sorry for coming off harsh... it really looks like it has become more of an issue that I feel it is worth.

I do think we should be more honest with each other (as game making brothers and sisters) and do things in the spirit of competition, not just try to slide in with previous work at the possibility of an easy win.

Polished games are polished because they have had time to be polished. Experience says the "fun" in a new game idea typically comes in at the very last stages. Combine that with the fact that the 1st version of any game (which is all 1 month really allows, no matter the experience of the team) will need work and polish and that's clear. Yet I see 2 more or less polished entries and they both are games that I know have been worked on or released in some form or another prior to the contest.

It's true the rules don't say "it has to be made within the time of the contest" but i imagine that is more because that is near impossible to regulate and there are limits to what can be done there. Saying "must not have been released" is a realistic way of mitigating that fact. Taking that rule then submitting a port of an old game and calling it new is *arguably* just an easy way to "shuck" the rules and it seemed to me outside of the spirit of friendly competition.

To add to that, there's was talk of bending yet another rule and submitting past the deadline because it's hard to regulate external links. It all reaked of things that are not inline with friendly & honest competition, and I felt compelled to respond.

Again I'm sorry to those I've offended (the list is getting longer it seems! i truly am sorry). And I didn't mean to single you out Matthew, I like you, it was just that you're also a professional and I expected more.

I myself had originally planned to enter an entirely different game idea. When I heard about the contest (was about 6 days after the announcement) I started work immediately on a completely new game idea just for the contest. It was going to be this cool puzzle builder / chain reaction thing. Then I read Yoggy's entry Beta thread over at the Unity forums... Beta only a week after the contest announcement!

Speaking with Yoggy, he 'confessed' to me he'd been working on it for a few months and I started thinking that other's might 'interpret' the rules this same way and that as a result I would have no chance to compete at all... not even if I had the best team available. In the end, I made new art, animation, and new gameplay but following an existing perspective just to try to compete.

It was all for naught, as the gameplay itself is only half there; only when you Run is the 'hook' apparent (the breathing into the microphone to make your character less fatigued), but even then, the motivation for it (the bombs and the timer) are half done at best. And as time ran-out, I didn't even get to putting them in an interesting level layout (just pieces in a test level).

Still, 95% of what happens on screen was made specifically during this contest (and it shows! heh). Including all tuning and tweaking to find that "just right" feel (which takes the most time).

Again my apologies for coming off harsh. It's true I'm new here and I do want this place to be a great community of honest and friendly game makers. I just don't like to see good intentions being taken advantage of unfairly (as i perceive it) while honest people make real efforts to work within the guidelines and spirit laid forth by the friendly contest.

Although I am far from an iDG contest vet I think the rules are pretty fair and although I got lucky and had a somewhat unfair advantage I beleive I am inside the rules for sure and I hate clowns seems like it is inside too.

I do feel a little bit like it wasn't fair for the people who started later or started completely from scratch as the contest was anounced but I don't think it is something to disqualify people over.

I would have no trouble with a contest where you have to make your game from scratch but those aren't the rules carlos came up with for 3DU.

In terms of unfriendliness I know of a couple of queries on the Unity forum where I hesitated to help people, and I had to consider my actions in that respect...Ive since offered help there. I wonder if anybody held back from helping me cause they wanted to beat me...?

I just cant stand the thought of people seeing my work with bugs in it. Hopefully judging is underway soon, and we can fix our bugs.
AC

Casemon Wrote:To add to that, there's was talk of bending yet another rule and submitting past the deadline because it's hard to regulate external links. It all reaked of things that are not inline with friendly & honest competition, and I felt compelled to respond.

I didn't realize when I posted it what that little question would spark! If I had, I wouldn't have bothered...

I would like to clarify that I was not intending to update to add a slew of new features to my game a week after the competition was over (although, as I've continued working on Botbuilder since then, I actually do have a slew of new features ready...). The reason I'd asked is that Botbuilder had a lot of bugs and performance issues, particularly on other people's computers, and in the closing day/hours of the contest I had been unable to get ahold of most of the people who had been reporting them. Since the judges are "other people", I saw those as pretty major concerns.

(As another clarification, I have not updated Botbuilder since the end of the contest; the file on my site was uploaded the morning it ended)

StarManta Wrote:I didn't realize when I posted it what that little question would spark! If I had, I wouldn't have bothered...

This has indeed gotten out of hand. These contests are just for fun right? People seem way more uptight about this than they should be. I worked pretty hard on the graphics for my team's entry (Parallel Destiny) and I put the effort in with the goal of "winning" because competition is a healthy catalyst for pushing out your best work. There's some prizes to be won but really this all about sharing our creations and ultimately learning how to make better games from eachother's examples.

If I had had a game in the works before the contest start (that I could finish within a month) you better believe I would have tried to enter it into this comp. That's fair game and just lucky timing for some of the entries. Our team got together and didn't even solidify a game concept until December 3rd. So be it, we learned a lot from the experience of just trying to get 4 people to sync up to one game concept and try to finish it in time. It was a fun experience and I learned quite a bit about working with a team.

Everyone should just chill out and appreciate the fact that they got "anything" done within such a short time frame... congrats, it's hard work. Let's try to be a community of people interested in the same thing and work off of eachother's influences instead of fighting against them.

aNTeNNa trEE Wrote:This has indeed gotten out of hand. These contests are just for fun right?

With a $3200+ prize fund up for grabs the contest could be seen as far from just for fun.

The updating past the deadline does concern me though as I have seen one link to a post deadline download which is the same as the official entry link.

Since the contest finished I have released a new, visually superior, build of my game but at a different link so that the judges can get the contest build and the public can get the better build. By sticking to the spirit of the rules I hope I don't loose out and I'm sure I'm not the only entrant in the same situation.

agreed this is getting out of hand. i'm just one game maker with an opinion and everyone is free to disagree with me. i encourage it in fact, as i support the free flow of ideas.

i also choose to participate in contests that are more or less fair and balanced, and my opinion is that this one is not. sure it was started just for fun, but I have little interest in working "for fun" towards goals that move depending on when you start.

aNTeNNA trEE Wrote:If I had had a game in the works before the contest start (that I could finish within a month) you better believe I would have tried to enter it into this comp. That's fair game and just lucky timing for some of the entries.

Emil, I respect you (and everyone here more or less) but that's where you and i differ. in the spirit of friendly competition, i think the opposite. if I had an easy advantage to winning, I *wouldn't* take it as I'd consider it unfair and contrary to the spirit of a "friendly competition" and that is would be obvious to all.

i guess i just don't need to win that much, but perhaps the possibility of an easy win is just too great for some. in the end, the only thing proven to me here is that if one person bends the rules, then it pretty much forces everyone to, in order to compete.

imagine the same thing but with dioramas, you know those little boxed scenes? a contest for making dioramas is held and it runs for one month: "oh and these people here, they've been making theirs for the last 2 months, but don't worry about them, you might be one of the lucky ones next time and start before the contest" it's a joke right?

Andrew Sage Wrote:The updating past the deadline does concern me though as I have seen one link to a post deadline download which is the same as the official entry link.

Since the contest finished I have released a new, visually superior, build of my game but at a different link so that the judges can get the contest build and the public can get the better build. By sticking to the spirit of the rules I hope I don't loose out and I'm sure I'm not the only entrant in the same situation.

I'm adhering to the same strategy, this time. But for the record, in past contests people updated past the final submission date, and this was expressly allowed. It is not clear what the rule is this time. My guess is, judging was supposed to have begun promptly after the deadline but as usual some of the judges failed to show and now Carlos is scrambling. (In future judges should have to post a deposit when they volunteer, and they lose the deposit if they fail to perform their duties. Either that, or there is an honorarium that they forfeit.)

As far as being "unfair", there are many things which give one contestant an advantage over another, and we simply can't regulate them all out of existance.

- People wthout full-time jobs
- People without finals to study for
- People without families
- Programmers who have a dedicated artist/musician/modeller working with them
- People named Rocco :-)
- People who have previously-developed code to borrow from (or already had used Unity)
- People who have well-formed game ideas on paper or in their head already
- People who start a project months in advance
- People who don't happen to get sick during the contest period
- People who have powerful hardware to develop on
- People who have licenses for, and experience with, high-end tools like Maya
- People who have professional s/w development experience

I used to get very hung up on the perceived disadvantages I was working under for these contests. But hey, that's life. I've learned to play to my strengths and compensate for some of my weaknesses, and some of the disadvantages are a matter of choice, after all.

No contest can have an entirely level playing field. At best we can pick the factors that most bother us and try to regulate them in enforceable ways. It's not easy though.

MattDiamond Wrote:As far as being "unfair", there are many things which give one contestant an advantage over another, and we simply can't regulate them all out of existance.

- People wthout full-time jobs
- People without finals to study for
- People without families
- Programmers who have a dedicated artist/musician/modeller working with them
- People named Rocco :-)
- People who have previously-developed code to borrow from (or already had used Unity)
- People who have well-formed game ideas on paper or in their head already
- People who start a project months in advance
- People who don't happen to get sick during the contest period
- People who have powerful hardware to develop on
- People who have licenses for, and experience with, high-end tools like Maya
- People who have professional s/w development experience

So true

The only advantage I have is photoshop experience and a license through my work, but my game didn't even have textures

Oh well...

The contest was quite fun though, and the 9 months of unity should keep all of the runners up happy (Like myself ).

I agree with Ethan in that this is about fun, but Its all good that Casemon raised his concerns. I support that. Another disadvantage is teams vs individuals.

And then theres the point that if you release a game as a comp entry, you cant sell it, cause you've already given it away for free...

I wanna thank the iDev games crew for 1. Getting me interested in this website/forum, 2. Lighting a fire under my a** so I finish my work, and 3.Making me lift my game so I actually release a game. Ive never done that before....Wow...
AC

Targos Wrote:And then theres the point that if you release a game as a comp entry, you cant sell it, cause you've already given it away for free...

Let me make this very clear: any games developed for 3DU may definitely be sold by you. Release a version that's different from your contest entry, and you can definitely sell it. It's only your contest version that is held to whatever public license for the source code - future versions do not need to have their code publicly distributed.

Both games I currently sell on my website were developed during iDevGames contests; my 3DU entry, Curling, will be yet another one!

Quote:I wanna thank the iDev games crew for...Making me lift my game so I actually release a game. Ive never done that before.

So glad this contest got you to finally finish something! That is one of the big goals of contests.